Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Dig for victory... or else!

Once the government got round to banning hunting, smoking, lightbulbs and clamping down on alcohol, I knew it would only be a matter of time before the swivel-eyed fanatics turned their attention towards our food. And so it has come to pass.

The UK’s agriculture minister, Hilary Benn, has proclaimed that we should all change our eating habits. The vegetarian minister wishes to ‘encourage’ us to eat less red meat in order to reduce the methane gas produced every time a poor cow farts. Methane makes up just 4% of the UK’s so-called greenhouse gasses and as the UK produces less than 2% of all global emissions, I’m struggling at this point to work out how a small reduction in the total number of British cows is going to make any difference to the fairy tale of global warming. Incidentally, what’s the weather like where you are? It’s -8 degrees here and bloody freezing!

So, the government has decided that all its subjects must henceforth keep a bucket in the kitchen that will be used for ‘food slops’ and leftovers. These must be scraped into the government slop bucket or else householders will face the threat of fines or imprisonment. The food will then be taken away for composting, no doubt with a massive increase in our council taxes to pay for this weekly service. One thing is for sure, the sale of air fresheners will rocket, until the government bans them.

Households who throw out too much or too little will no doubt be investigated for wasting too much food or those with too little in their buckets will be accused of disposing of their leftovers illegally. You couldn’t make this stuff up. I doubt whether the poor sods that lived through the worst years of the Soviet Union had to put up with this much intrusion into their private lives, and all for the sake of some loony eco warrior’s wet dream. Oddly enough, we are already forbidden from putting any foodstuffs into garden compost least mad cow disease enters the food chain. So God knows how this new system will work.

The government also has a few other treats up its culinary sleeve for us to enjoy. Special offers such as Buy One Get One Free (or BOGOF as it’s so charmingly known) will be outlawed on perishable food in order to stop waste. That will go down well with hard-pressed and overtaxed families, I’m sure. Also, Best Before dates will be phased out, probably to be replaced by a skull-and-crossbones logo with a date next to it showing the last possible moment of consumption before botulism or salmonella will set in. Restaurants and takeaways will also be forced to put health warnings on any dishes that displease the stick thin Mr Benn and any other ascetic types working in his Food Ministry.

I stupidly thought liberal democracy was all about increased freedom and choice. And yet here we are, supposedly one of the richest nations on earth, and our government is bossing us around as though Hitler is sat on our doorstep, waiting to eat our babies. It brings to mind the wartime Dig for Victory campaign and all the austerity and rationing that went with it. The sheer illiberalism of these control freaks is truly scary. I’m struggling to imagine what they’ll tax or control next.

24 comments:

No way will I have a slop bucket in my kitchen. I tried this once and the cats pulled it over. Also, you can't compost meat anyway. The rules and regulations about recycling are so complex that a lot of people just don't bother. I do my best but it does my head in!

I listened to Benn this morning on one of the TV news programmes and he clammed up quicker than a misers purse when the ‘Meat free Mondays,’ were mentioned. He quickly moved on to something less contentious as we know as a vegetarian (nothing wrong with that) he knew he would feel the wrath of people who wish to choose what they eat and when they eat.Benn addresses nothing about reducing the global population which he seemed to bang on about so much, having to be able to feed the billions of new mouths, when he and others could educate and dish out free Jonnies, the pill or pay to encourage men to have the snip. But no, he states WE have to change our ways whilst helping others.Maybe if he brought in a cull on Badgers that are suffering and spreading TB we could reduce the many thousands of cattle slaughtered each year because of TB. Eire proved beyond doubt, and the UK evidence is the same that a cull of Badger would reduce TB.But as Badgers are fluffy and beloved by our urban dwelling voters and those ex urbanites who now come to live in the countryside and STILL love Mr Badger, I think they will never bow to the obvious and bring in a proper, controlled cull of Badgers.My friends have lost entire herds due to TB from Badgers, even herds that have never had a new cow brought onto farms, all done thorugh AIBad tempered rant over.

Rants are welcome... especially when they expose the stupidity, hypocrisy and sheer incompetence of this morally bankrupt bunch of thieves who are masquerading as our government. I don't expect Cameron to do any better or to change much but when you're caught in a gin trap you'll even gnaw your own arm off to escape from your tormentor.

Slop bucket in the kitchen - tried it for a while but it stank quite a lot and we got fed up with it. For some reason the buckets are made of a type of plastic which absorbs and retains food smells - brilliant idea..... .

Hi XTM!I line my organic garbage bin with brown paper bags that are sold specifically for this purpose and I empty them frequently into the big bin that stands outside next to the other bins. So I don't register any smells inside. Once in a while I clean the bin with a little bleach. The big bin is emptied by the recycling firm once a week in summer and fortnightly in winter, and you also put the gardening waste into it. If ever you find fruit flies in your kitchen this is how to get rid of them: you put a mixture of water, sugar and vinegar (or stale wine or beer) into a bowl and add a few drops of dishwashing liquid which weakens the upside strength of the liquid (it makes it more liquid so to speak). The fruit flies think it's a rotten fruit and reach it in great numbers, but they drown because they cannot fly way again (surface too weak). If you prefer, you could also start restaging scientific experiments with them. By all counts, I like the fruit flies better than the metallic meat flies. Once my cats put a dead mouse under my bed in the height of summer. Now, this was awful. I prefer the vegetable scrapes bucket in my kitchen any day (and especially night)! Best wishes! Barbara (still in Vienna)

Actually, I've had a green compost bucket in the cupboard under the sink for several years now as I have an allotment and compost my green waste down there. You do need to empty the bucket frequently and give it a wash from time to time. It's not that much of a hardship...

I'm not against recycling or composting but I object to the coercive nature of these schemes. We've seen countless times how sensible schemes end up being used as a stick to beat us with fines and threats. Public servants don't seem to understand moderation. Give anyone too much power and they will misuse it.

Thank you moorland ranter, I couldn't agree more. There's no point in making any changes unless you do something about reducing the population, but no they just encourage everyone to breed like flies, regardless of their state of health.

But the main question I want to raise is who is Hilary Benn? Is she by any chance the son (?) of the unspeakable Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, who is in my humble opinion the only man in England shitty enough to call a boy Hilary? So she's another one of the many people in public life who only got their jobs because of having a famous and "powerful" parent. An awful lot of these nepotistic beneficiaries seem to be Labour supporters, don't they? Could there be some connection?

Good afternoon ETM - no time to deal with all this nonsense - it is about to SNOW in LONDON so the world is about to stop turning - life will cease for 24 hours as we know it. Well as at 15.25 hrs on my computer no sign of snow as yet - but that's no excuse not to start to PANIC and MOAN or even a good RANT!

I have no problem with a meat-free day once or more a week, particularly a red-meat day because it may reduce my risk of heart disease later in life. However, I'm not entirely convinced that it would stop all this global warming (in York we have about 10cm of snow on the ground)....

I have an Australian passport if you're keen! Actually, my husband's would probably be a bit more appropriate, him being male and all...

Hilary Benn is a socialist hypocrite from a family who has had wealth passed down through the ages and privilege handed to them on a plate yet they complain and harangue others who have the same privilege or less than they have, but as most are not socialists the Benn’s can sit back in smugness and arrogance, bleating on and on about the unfairness of it all. His dad, Anthony Wedgwood Benn is the present Viscount Stansgate, but he dropped using the title when he came into politics (Hilary or other son still able to be use title) to appeal to the brother and sisters of the socialist cause. The nepotism of the Labour Party guaranteed that his son would become a Labour MP no matter what. So much for socialism and the right to choose for the common man, no Labour supporter from an ordinary background would stand a chance against Hilary if they ran against him for a seat.

A have bad news for you - Australia is going down the same overregulated and invasive route that the UK is. A lot of what I read in your blog I can relate directly to here, although we don't seem quite as bad...

Will you get in trouble with your gov if you install a garbage disposal and just grind it up and send it down the pipes? We have done "slop buckets" at our home but only when we had livestock who enjoyed eating that sort of thing (pigs). Not in that sort of living conditions now (thank goodness) and little garden space, so no need for compost.

I have a worm farm in the backyard that takes most of our foodscraps - spose they'd freeze to death over there tho - probably get into trouble for not throwing out enough stuff anyway!As for the Aussie passport - I'm having enough trouble getting my 2yr old one - she was born here but we are still Kiwi citizens - sigh - we also have our helpful govt depts!Good luck :)

@Tenntrace: We're always in trouble with our government. It employs so many checkers, snooper, inspectors and enforcers it's like being poked with a sharp stick all the time. The idea of leaving us to quietly get on with our life doesn't occur to our rulers.

@Simon: you're so right. I reduce my impact on the environment whenever I can but it doesn't stop our rulers from constantly nagging us and taxing us to death as if we're naughty children wilfully being disobedient.

I don't know much but I do know that if we eat less meat, then it logically follows that there will be more cows. By eating meat, we are reducing the number of belching farm animals.

As for global warming, has anyone looked out the window in the last two weeks? A miled, wet winter we were promised by the Met Office. Instead we had a colder than usual December (by 2C) and the worst snow storms in 30-odd years.

The whole climate change/global warming nonsense is nowt more than a scam to extort ever increasing taxes, which is why I know refer to Greens, global warmmongers and ecoloons as Climate Scientologists - a religion designed to fleece the gullible.

Notes from a hospital bed

Fractured freelance journalist now released from traction and walking again. Recuperating at home with good food and fine friends. Growing increasingly angry about the scandal of nutritional neglect in our hospitals.